Donuts and Afterlife: A Tale of Endiness
by The Sharra
Summary: Kanzas and Belzac watch Kanzas' descendant. Bad humor. Bad.


"Donuts and Afterlife" 

A Tale of Endiness 

by She-Ronin 

It was a beautiful day in the afterlife. Well, it actually had to be a beautiful day, because this realm was heaven. Heaven, as one would expect, is obligated to be beautiful, or the dead would find themselves rather disappointed after crossing through gaudy, golden gates. 

Yes, heaven was a beautiful place. 

That was why everyone was particularly surprised to find that the Violet Dragoon was trapped inside his dark, filthy tower when he could be out throwing Frisbees around with Zieg, or playing blackjack with St. Peter. 

Then again, Kanzas was Kanzas, and if these people were surprised, then they were a lot more naïve than the average Hero. 

In his tower, the Violet Dragoon was sitting in a comfortable, crosslegged position, his array of death dolls spread out around him. The random death doll did a happy little dance in Kanzas' fist as he jerked the toy around in the air. Its head flopped mockingly for a second, as if poking fun at the childlike glee on the redheaded man's face. When Kanzas spoke, it wasn't in his normal, hoarse tones, but in a particularly disturbing, high-pitched voice. 

"Oh, Kanzas, you are so handsome, and everyone _loooves_ you!" 

Kanzas cleared his throat in 'response' to the doll, his chest puffing out in manly pride. "Why, thank you, Polly Prissypants." 

The odd, high-pitched voice again… 

"You're welcome! You are so strong! Not like Belzac. Shirley thinks so, too." 

Well, in an ideal world, maybe Shirley would think that. Kanzas sighed glumly and thought briefly of the selection of Kanzas-related fanfics on a certain website he liked to browse through. The one story about him, and he was involved in an incestuous relationship with his sister? Who was Shirley. Soa, he hated his afterlife sometimes. 

A knock sounded at the door of his tower suddenly, and he froze, his eyes going wide in horror. He glanced down at the death dolls on the floor, many of which were clad in the latest, most up-to-date Barbie fashions… 

One of the goddamned things still had a brush stuck in its pipecleaner hair, too. Well, shit. 

Kanzas responded the only way a dead man in his situation possibly could respond. 

_"Get the fuck lost, Belzac!"_

"Will you hurry up in there? We have to be at Kadessa in an hour!" 

He paused, eyed the doll in his hand, and then blinked. "But… we already went to Kadessa! Remember? Phallic appendage through your chest? Failing to save Shirley?" 

Silence. 

"Ah. Right. So, can I come in?" 

Kanzas was very thankful he had a lock on his door, as he wasn't about to let Belzac into his tower to see all the fun things he was doing. He was just the kind of half-breed weirdo that wouldn't understand anything about death dolls and their individual personalities. 

"Oh, Kanzas, I wish I could wear pink the way you do," 'Polly Prissypants' murmured. 

He stiffened, and his cheeks flushed dark red in outrage as he glanced down at the Dragoon armor he was currently wearing. It wasn't pink and he didn't care what everyone else said, goddammit! Polly Prissypants was getting too uppity for her own good these days… "It's not pink," he hissed back at 'her'. "_It's magenta_." 

The little minx ignored him, her blonde curls bouncing atop her bloodstained head. "Please pour some more tea for me, Kanzas!" 

Not particularly concerned that he was arguing with himself at this point, Kanzas squeezed the doll's neck tightly, a snarl twisting his rather bony face. "You're not getting any more tea until you change those nasty words of yours _Polly Fuckinprissypants!_" 

"Who the hell is Polly Prissypants?" The door shook dangerously as Belzac kicked at it with his foot. "And why is your door locked?" 

Kanzas' head whipped around so hard that a distinct, disturbing crack sounded through the sudden silence of his tower. "Do you mind, Giganto?" he roared, "I'm trying to have a conversation here!" 

"With who? Kanzas, are you playing with your dolls again?" 

"_They're action figures!_" he screamed at the top of his lungs. 

Belzac's only response was to kick at the door again, more violently this time. S_tupid locks. How does a person manage to buy home security in heaven, anyway? It's not like someone's going to rob him! What'll they take, his doll collection?_ He sighed. _I can't believe that jackass killed so many people in the first place. _"I'm coming in whether you like it or not!" the half-breed warned, "don't make me break down the door!" 

Kanzas' dark, cold glare promised that he and Polly Prissypants would have quite a long discussion about the color of his armor sometime very soon. He didn't have all that much time to silently threaten his doll, however, as he had to scramble to pick up the girly mess scattered all over his room. "I'm not dressed!" he shot back, sweeping a pile of dolls under his bed with one arm. 

"That's disgusting." 

"Screw you!" 

It took a few moments, but all signs of feminine activity were soon banished from sight. The place was now bare, and cold, and quite a bit like Kanzas' love life, in all honesty. He sighed and brushed a few droplets of sweat on his face, leaning against the side of his rumpled bed. "Okay, you can come in!" 

There was a rattling sound as Belzac tried to push open the locked barrier. "Kanzas! Will you unlock it?" 

The redheaded man hummed a pleasant little song under his breath, inspecting his nails for a brief moment. 

Belzac inhaled a deep breath, counting to ten in a half-hearted attempt to keep his temper. _Can't kill your ally, can't kill your ally, can't kill-_

The door went burst open with a loud splintering noise and the Golden Dragoon stood there, his lip curled in a disdainful snarl as he saw Kanzas sitting there so casually. 

Kanzas waggled his fingers in a brief wave. "Yo." 

"Yo," Belzac drawled back sarcastically, crossing his arms over his sizeable chest. The other man blinked lazily up at him, reaching down with one hand to scratch at his crotch. Belzac grimaced. _I don't need to see that._

"So, whatcha want?" 

"You dead-_er_. But that's another issue entirely, I guess." He stepped from the doorway and into the tower, a veritable giant clad in leather, chainmail, and for some inexplicable reason, a banana yellow bandana. Now, why exactly was he here, anyway? He'd thought they were due to pay a visit to Kadessa, but then, as Kanzas reminded him, they had already gone eleven thousand years ago. _I wonder if one can get Alzheimer's in the afterlife… _"I… uh-" 

His fellow Dragoon shifted warily, hiking a fiery eyebrow. "I know what this is about," Kanzas muttered. "You're wanting your kinky seeing orb back, aren't you? Look, I know even dead men have needs and everything, but do you really need to watch all those living people?" 

Belzac could almost see the lightbulb that appeared over his head. _Eureka_, he thought. "Yes!" he agreed hastily, "I want my seeing orb back. There was a uh, movie I wanted to watch tonight on the Endiness Movie Network. They're running a Dolly Parton marathon and-" 

A shrug. Kanzas lifted the stained sheet bunched up on his bed and felt underneath the old cloth, scrounging for said orb. A quick search produced a banana peel, Shirley's copy of Buns of Steel, and, for some reason-Belzac didn't want to know- a DVD of The Postman. 

"Aha!" 

Belzac cringed as Kanzas tossed the fragile glass sphere through the air. "This is why I never lend you any of my stuff, Kanzas!" he cried, half-leaping across the room as he reached out to catch his precious seeing orb. 

A frown flickered across Kanzas' face as he stood up, absently tossing the sheet back onto the mattress. He just knew Belzac was going to start whining about that damned X-Box of his in about three seconds… 

"Like with my X-Box, for Soa's sake-" 

"Look, I said I was sorry. How was I supposed to know how fragile they were?" 

There were actually tears in Belzac's pale eyes as he hugged the orb against his chest. _"You threw it against the wall!"_

Oh, dammit, he was going to start crying. If there was one thing Kanzas couldn't stand to see, it was the sight of a seven foot-tall man reduced to pitiful, blubbering tears. _Why does he have to be so sensitive, anyway?_ He cringed and held his arms out at his sides, making soothing, placating motions. "I know, I know." _I hate you, Belzac, I hate you I hate you-_"Look, why don't you and I-" _Ugh. _"Spend some time together. Do some male bonding. You know---" he grinned what he hoped was encouragingly, "Watch the old, uh, seeing orb. Sunday Night Football is supposed to be on--" 

"Can we watch Lifetime?" 

Oh, no, no no, dammit, there was no way in _hell_- 

Kanzas had one chance to survive this hellish encounter, and he was going to use any available opportunity to get out of watching… that channel. There were some things men couldn't handle-talking about their feelings, for example. Or eating hot dogs for dinner without making crude gestures with their food. "Why don't we spy on our descendants instead?" he suggested weakly. He was now visibly sweating, and his right eye had developed a mysterious twitch. "You like voyeurism, don't you?" 

The Earth elemental frowned, but finally nodded. "It's not voyeurism, though, so you can stop calling it that." He plopped down onto the floor with a very audible thud, folding his legs underneath him as the seeing orb floated mysteriously up into the air. 

Smoke surrounded the glass ball, swirling around it for a moment and causing Kanzas to cough as he waved some of it away from his face. "So, can we take a look at my descendants this time? We don't ever get to really see what legacy I left after I died." 

Belzac blinked at Kanzas quizzically as the other man sat down across from him, leaning forward and peering into the crystalline sphere. "I didn't know you had children." 

"None that I could have claimed as mine, anyway. Do you know what those women's husbands would have done if they'd found out what I was doing with their wives while they were away during the war?" 

If it were possible for the Giganto to sweatdrop, he certainly would have done so at that moment. "I see," he muttered dryly." 

"I need to see that my seed has lived on." 

_"Kanzas!"_

"That the fruit of my loins has not died out." 

_"Kanzas_! Will you please watch the orb?!" 

If possible, the already darkened tower dimmed considerable, so that the two men were almost completely enshrouded in blackness. The flickering 'screen' the two were now entranced by provided the only light in the room…. 

*** 

"Pookie-bear! The power is out again!" 

'Pookie-bear's' wife was a tall, pretty woman, of the variety one would often expect to see spread-eagled on the cover of certain dirty scrolls one needed to be of legal age to purchase. Despite being sleep-rumpled, her bright red hair fell in attractive waves, fanning out across her rather sizeable bosom and down past her wide, childbearing hips. 

*** 

"Pookie-bear?!" Kanzas snarled. "What the-" 

Pookie-bear's name was in fact Davidson Zas, but those of the village knew him simply as 'Dave'. This fact imprinted itself clearly upon Kanzas' rather bloody mind. Perhaps it was the bond an ancestor shared with his descendant, but it was more likely that the author just didn't want to write out Kanzas discovering Dave's name. 

Belzac's smirk was particularly nasty, and more than a little gleeful. "Isn't that interesting? His name is Dave… Zas. It's kind of like your name, but with 'Dave' in it." 

"Shut up!" 

*** 

Dave was a Thunder elemental, and had been gifted with certain special powers, one might say. He didn't use them often, but they came in handy from time to time. When old Mickey the mousecatcher had suffered a heart attack outside the bakery, it had been Dave who had jumpstarted his heart with his bare hands and saved the man's life. When the village generator had shut down, it had been Dave who had stood in place of it day in and day out, tireless, until a new one had arrived. 

The broad-shouldered male's hands crackled with a brilliant sparks of electricity as he nodded, clenching one fist tightly. "I'll get right on the roof to fix it, beloved." 

*** 

"Oh, he is _not _about to go out there in the pouring rain because his wife told him to-" 

Belzac's face, if possible, beamed even more brightly than it had a moment ago. Dave had, indeed, walked out into the middle of the pouring rain, humming with electricity no less. _'What a nice boy_, he thought to himself. "Look, Kanzas. He just restored power to his house in such dangerous conditions, and all because the woman he loved _asked_ him to!" 

His companion's skin crawled. That sounded… far too familiar, somehow. As if it had happened at some point in the-- _oh, dear Soa_. "How much worse can this situation get?" 

"There, there." Belzac clucked his tongue a few times and reached out, placing a gentle, understanding hand on Kanzas' shoulder. The redhead eyed him suspiciously before edging back, slapping the hand away. 

"Don't touch me, man." 

*** 

An interesting thing about Heaven is that time passes in the blink of an eye if you don't pay attention. Yes. The blink of an eye. Belzac and Kanzas had been so busy watching the life of Dave and his wife-known simply as 'beloved', or 'Mrs. Zas', that before they knew it, dawn had approached. 

Don't question it. Merely accept. 

Dave had been a mercenary for many years, and a rather good one at that. Therefore, it had been particularly surprising to his fellow Endiness badasses when he decided to settle down with a retired harlot and open up the Fluffy Puff Bakery. Dave was a good baker, as good a baker as he had been a mercenary, and it was rumored his donuts were the finest in the land. 

As Dave made wonderful donuts, it was no surprise that he encountered many interesting characters while working behind his bakery counter. That morning was no exception, and when the loin-cloth wearing Giganto clomped through the front door, Dave did little more than raise an eyebrow. 

"Mornin', Mr. Giant," he greeted. 

Kongol stared at him, shifting his axe habitually over one bare, brown shoulder. His eyes flickered over the array of baked goods in the glass case below as he mulled over the many choices available to him. Finally, he decided, "Kongol want donut." 

*** 

_"You can take that rolling donut and give it a good, old-fashioned-"_

"Kanzas! Watch your language!" 

_"He's a baker!! I can't believe he's a baker!"_

Neither of them noticed the small, fey figure slip through the gigantic hole in the door. Waves of aqua hair gently framed the young girl's blue-scaled face, and as she walked, her skirt rippled gently around her ankles. "Belzac," Damia murmured serenely, sliding up behind the two, "it's not like he was joking about rimjobs or something." 

There was only one way to possibly describe the terrible shock the two suffered from young Damia's words. Young, shy, unhappy Damia, who never really did much of anything besides sit in her room and brood. Damia, who was never anything but polite. The infinite depths of their confusion, puzzlement, and horror could only be displayed… 

… in the form of an emoticon. 

O_O 

Kanzas barely managed to pull his focus away from the amusement that was a hyperventilating Belzac, shaking his head in vague disbelief at the teenager. "What would you know about a rim-" 

_"Kanzas!"_

Damia let out a quiet little snort, twirling one thin finger around a strand of her fine, soft hair. "Fifteen is plenty old enough to know about things like that," she whispered, red eyes gleaming with an almost devilish sort of amusement. "Syuveil has this thing in his lab that's shaped like a-" 

_"Damia!"_

"Reeeeally?" Kanzas drawled, his interest piqued by that interesting piece of news. Syuveil, for all intents and purposes, bordered on being a reclusive little weirdo, so he wasn't really that surprised. Anyone that had the skeleton of their dragon locked in their tower had to have something wrong with their mind, in his opinion. "And we're in Heaven, too. Where exactly did he manage to buy something like a-" 

*** 

"Kongol want biscotti." 

Dave shrugged apologetically, running a hand through tangled red hair with a sigh. "Sorry; fresh out. But we do have the fluffiest angel food cake in the world right now!" 

*** 

"I'm not hearing this, _I'm not hearing this-"_

"Well, angel food cake is fluffy, you know," the young girl breathed, stooping down to gaze into the seeing crystal. "So, anyway, I told Syuveil that 'It happens to lots of guys. Just put some batteries in and it'll be like…'" 

*** 

It took five minutes for Kongol to make it through the entire confection, and, as he munched contentedly on the last coconut covered bite, the mohawked warrior stated, "Kongol think angel food cake is divine." 

Dave clapped his hands together and boomed out, "I'm so glad to hear that!" Once again, the complexity of human emotions could best be expressed in a few, short symbols. 

^_^ 

"No aftertaste. Fluffy like cloud. Pleasant crumb on outside." 

^___^ 

*** 

"Kanzas, stop trying to slit your wrists with that DVD! It's not going to work. Besides, you're already dead, remember?" 

Kanzas continued sawing determinedly at his inner arm with his beloved copy of The Postman, tears clouding his eyes as he sputtered in indignation at the whole situation occurring down in the mortal world. While it was a sad sight to see a seven-foot tall half-breed break down in tears, it was somehow infinitely more disturbing to watch a cold-blooded killer do the exact same thing. Only with a DVD. 

Damia sighed, resting her small, pointed chin on her folded hands as she gazed sympathetically at Kanzas. "You know what makes you feel better in situations like these?" 

A sob. "Forgetting I was ever born?" 

She leaned forward so that her lips nearly brushed against his ear. He could feel the softness of her hair along his face, and noted almost dazedly that she smelled of the sea-sharp, clean, and fresh. When was the last time he'd actually gotten some, again? 

Ah, yes. That chapter in Healer, Killer… 

The tantalizing words the half-mermaid whispered in his ears actually made his eyes pop out in shock and fascination. 

"At least, that's what Zieg told me all that time ago…" 

He couldn't help but wonder what Damia had been up to. All at once, Kanzas felt infinitely better than he had. Screw Dave, anyway. He had plenty of other descendants in the mortal world, right? He'd been active enough before he'd died! Up until people had realized how pretty some of the others were in comparison. Then it had been all about Syuveil, and Damia, and Damia, and Syuveil and that _damned_ Rose- 

Belzac looked unbelievably disturbed by this latest turn of events, and he shifted uncomfortably as he stared at the Blue Sea Dragoon. "No," he said flatly. 

Kanzas sneered at him. "'No', what?" 

Belzac cracked his knuckles warningly at the distraught redhead, shaking his head slowly from side to side. _Oh, you know what I'm talking about. You keep your hands off the jailbait-uh, off of Damia! _"I said no." 

Sometimes, the best thing to do when one's sex life was at stake was to outright lie. "Damia and I were just going to," he flicked his gaze to Damia, who looked oddly amused by what was happening. "… go pick some flowers in the fields." 

"I bet I know what 'flower' you were wanting to pick!" Belzac snapped. 

For some incomprehensible reason, Damia's face flushed a bright red, a red so bright that it matched her eyes perfectly. "You…" she mumbled, tears hanging delicately from her long lashes. She sniffled. "You're… _terrible_, Belzac!" 

With that she lurched to her feet and spun around, fleeing from the room in a flurry of blue skirts and hair. Belzac just stared after her, unable to comprehend the teenager's sudden mood swing. His jaw was hanging wide open and slowly, he shook his head. _What in Soa's name…?_

"Nice going," Kanzas snapped, glaring at him. "You made her _cry_." 

*** 

While all this blatant idiocy was going on in the afterlife, one would find it important to know that Davidson Zas had been called away on urgent business. Namely, he had to go and jumpstart a young woman's car battery by the Slambert Memorial Bridge. However, Dave was a good host, and that was part of the reason he ran such a successful business. Therefore, Dave did what any good host would have done, and left his particularly attractive wife to entertain the half-naked Giganto who was literally eating his weight in gold. 

Kongol shifted his weight on the cute little café chair he was sitting on, ignoring the dangerous creaking as the flimsy metal fought to support his considerable bulk. He nudged his half-eaten plate of cheesecake despondently, biting his lower lip. "So everyone overlook Kongol as character. Think Kongol not 'bishie' enough. Stupid." 

The baker's wife leaned forward across the tiny table to pat his large forearm sympathetically. "Oh, don't be silly. You're such a nice boy, Kongol." 

"Kongol feel fat and worthless." 

"You're not fat at all! You're just… _husky_." Barely aware she was doing so, Mrs. Zas licked her lips briefly, eyeing his bare chest. "Very husky." 

*** 

It was probably for the best that no others were around to see the brawl that erupted when Kanzas attempted to follow Damia out of his tower-needless to say, Belzac had won by strength and sheer, brotherly protectiveness. Kanzas had been pinned to the floor in less than five seconds flat and hog-tied with an ease that set the wheels of particularly dirty minds turning. 

"Soa, I hate you so much right now, Belzac," the bound man snarled, struggling to get into an upright position in spite of his bonds. He was failing miserably, and Belzac couldn't help but feel obnoxiously smug about how stupid Kanzas looked. 

"If you ever pick flowers in a field with Damia," he said, far too pleasantly, "I will personally see to it that your blossom gets a royal reaming. You follow?" 

Kanzas' jaw dropped. 

"That's why Syuveil has your number." 

_"I'm going to kill you!"_

Belzac's smile was almost glaringly bright in his broad, understanding face. So bright, in fact, it practically matched his bandana… That grin was the grin of a character that had achieved the better of the two death sequences, and was well aware of that particular fact. "Too late." 

The Violet Dragoon growled in response, banging his chin on the hard stone of the floor as he pitched forward in another failed attempt to sit up. 

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch some television. Steel Magnolias is on tonight!" 

"I hope you have a good cry on Syu's shoulder," Kanzas jeered. "Now take your goddamned seeing orb and get the hell out of here!"_ I can get out of this. No problem. And when I do, Giganto, I swear to Soa, I'm going to hunt you down and…_

_I think I'll let you keep it a little longer._ The reply was too casual to be meant innocently, and one could only assume when hearing it that Belzac had far more in mind than watching some random chick flick in his wonderfully decorated tower. "Actually, Shirley is coming over." 

Kanzas actually roared at him. Soa's truth, the man _roared_, and gods trembled at the sound of it. 

*** 

The delicate china teacup should have been crushed by Kongol's huge hand, but, oddly enough, it wasn't. Thin wisps of steam wafted up from the cup and he blew on the golden-brown drink in an attempt to cool it. "And then Dart say 'Kongol won't want to come inside,' he spat out, "Stay out in freezing snow. 'Too big to fit inside and be comfortable.'" The warrior definitely knew how he felt about that whole situation. After one year, and a thousand gold worth of medical bills later, he was pissed as hell, and didn't make any attempt to hide that fact. "Kongol get _frostbite_." 

Mrs. Zas' eyes widened in horror and she dropped her own teacup. It hit the ground in an explosion of porcelain shards as she slapped her hand over her mouth to muffle her gasp. "Oh! Oh, no!" Dismay quickly turned to self-righteous rage at the unintentionally cruel treatment of the Golden Dragoon and she clenched her free hand into a tight fist, which promptly began to shake. "If that little punk ever sets foot inside the Fluffy Puff Bakery-" 

*** 

_"Arrrrrgh!"_

*** 

"-- then I'll raise him right off the pavement with a good kick to the teeth!" 

A sigh. "Kongol not main character. Kongol sad. Look good in red." 

_I bet you'd look better without the loincloth, _she thought lasciviously. "I'm sure you do, dear Kongol. I'm sure you do." 

The Giganto raised his eyes, staring at her for a long wordless moment. He put the teacup down. "Mrs. Zas find Kongol attractive?" 

She knocked all the baked goods off the table with one quick, violent sweep of her arm, clearing the surface so that she could put it to better use. 

*** 

_"My descendant's wife is not two-timing him with a fucking Giganto! Goddammit, Dave, get your pansy ass home right now! Do-gooder! Disappointment! How the hell could this happen, anyway? What kind of lame, stupid, twisted moron could even conceive of a situation like this- Belzac, I'm going to kill you! You hear? You're a dead man walking! Again!"_

Well… sometimes, the afterlife was beautiful. Sometimes, however, bad things happened to bad people in Heaven. 

Sometimes things were written that shouldn't have been written. 

Sometimes random authors end up getting lynched by readers, and yes- 

Yes, sometimes, even Belzac could be a great, big dick. 

___ 

I'm going to hell for this, aren't I? 

Well, not overly amusing, at any rate. Just some random skit I had lying around that I decided to warp out of script form. Best to take anything in this piece of hell with a grain of salt. ^_^; I like Damia, really, and I like Belzac and Kongol and Kanzas and everybody! Yay! It just makes them lots of fun to pick on. 

So, I guess this is the 667th story in the LoD section on FF.net. 

I find that… oddly symbolic of this damn thing. Yeah, the Polly Prissypants thing was blatantly stolen from South Park. Please don't sue me. ; Also, credit for the name 'Fluffy Puff' goes to the Homestar Runner website. 

This is all your damn fault, Amanda Swiftgold. 


End file.
